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I had to take a brief hiatus from the blog o’verse due to a hard drive malfunction. However I’m back and trying

If you live in a cave and don’t know what this is, it is Googles answer to Facebook. Want the official party line? Read this but my take is it’s like the Book but better cause it assumes you don’t want your mom to see that hilarious sex video you want to show your zany group of friends. So you put your mom in the “doesn’t like funny things” circle” and your friends in the “i’m also a pervert” circle and your worlds are instantly separate. Secret internet lives commence.

I am not exactly sure how I am going to be using it as I am a very passive/ angry Facebook user but as of now it has yet to become cluttered with posts about dumb kids or people on bikes being mad at cars or the dramatic teenagers you somehow know or my grandmother and that makes it much more appealing.

The feature I like the most, aside from being able to group people is the google+ version of the “like” button. It is called “+1”. Aside from not understanding what +1 sensically means it serves a very practical function for link junkies. If you +1 an article on the internet you really like and want to share but end up taking up someones entire feed with weird articles about the financial climate in Poland, hitting the +1 put that article in the +1 category on your profile page. It’s a win, win, if I really like the videos of cats friend X posts, I can go to their profile and click on their +1s and see the videos there instead of an entire feed of cats but if I can’t stand when friend Y posts articles about rumspringa antics… you get the idea.

You do have the option of posting links directly into your feed which I think most people will still do which is fine I just would like to point out there is function for those obsessed with link sharing.

There is also a hangout function that allows you to video chat with multiple people at once. I tried it with Kamper once and it was lame since we were sitting next to each other but we later used it to talk with friends in Buffalo and it was really nice. This function also allows you and your friends to watch the same video on youtube together. Video chatting is not a new idea but from what I understand, I can be talking with one of my friends and then one of their friends, who I don’t know, can join our hangout and social networking just got one step awkwarder. I am not one for talking on the phone or having a picture taken so I doubt I will be hanging out that often.

I will point out I have not figured out if there is a wall equivalent on google+. Maybe googles research showed most wall posts are more email appropriate or they just can’t figure out how Zuckerberg did it. I’d survive without a wall.

Also, I forgot to mention it is still in it’s test phase so you need an invite to use it but for the moment they aren’t accepting anymore testers and I like being part of things other people can’t be apart of cause who doesn’t like exclusivity?!

In conclusion when this thing is opened up to the sea of stay at home moms, dramatic teenagers, relatives you only kind of know choose which circles you want to drown them in carefully to avoid the inevitable annoyance certain individuals bring to social networking. Now go get googled.